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8 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
With such enemies, who needs friends?, 14 Nov 2006
A clearheaded critique of certain social constructivist tendencies would be a welcome contribution to the philosophical debate; unfortunately this book does not provide it. It consistently overstates the importance or relevance of some of the more outlandish ideas of individual 'relativists' and/or 'constructivists', thereby neglecting the bulk of the literature proposing entirely reasonable forms of 'social constructivism' (though they are rarely advertised under this label). Lack of familiarity breeds contempt, and so it should come as a no surprise that Boghossian makes little attempt to give the positions he criticises a charitable interpretation. What is more worrying, however, is that some of Boghossian's arguments are outright sloppy. (In some cases, he exploits an equivocation between an assertion of entailment and one of identity in order to force an argument to work -- hardly an argumentative move worthy of a philosopher of Boghossian's standing...) In the preface, Boghossian writes that he tried to make the book accessible beyond the narrow circle of academic philosophers. While this is a laudable goal, I am doubtful whether it suffices to justify (to mention but one example) delegating to a mere footnote problems with, e.g., the tripartite definition of knowledge (p. 16) -- when it is the stalemate arising from just such problems which has prompted many philosophers to seek a departure from traditional epistemology, e.g. along the lines of social epistemology (and for this one need not turn to Latour, Boghossian's favorite bogeyman, but to figures such as Edward Craig...) Finally, the timing for Boghossian's book is awkward. Any discerning observer of contemporary epistemology should by now have noticed that there is considerable rapprochement between different philosophical traditions, an increased awareness of the role of values in epistemology, new constructive uses of history in philosophy, all of which contributes to the project of philosophical inquiry rather than detracting from it. In summary, to paraphrase Bernard Williams, a work in philosophy may be unimaginative not because it fails to be clever but because it misses the point. Boghossian's book is a clear instance of that.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Unconvincing, 8 Nov 2007
Paul Boghossian is the philosophical wing of the current anti-relativism brigade, which notably includes Alan Sokal, Ophelia Benson, Jeremy Stangroom and Nick Cohen. Fans of these writers should definitely have a look at "Fear of Knowledge", which (commendably) assesses the matter in plain English intelligible to non-philosophers. In this short, readable volume, Boghossian tries to tackle the relativist on logical grounds. It's a brave thing to do - if there really were gaping holes in the relativist position, a lot of relativists would finish the book red-faced and Boghossian would change the world.
Sadly, Boghossian doesn't succeed. This is a very brief treatment of the topic that often takes the form of specific quibbles with specific examples given by relativists. His big headline argument against epistemic relativism (i.e. the view that there are no absolute facts regarding what beliefs we are epistemically justified in holding) is unpersuasive. You wait for the killer blow and it never comes. It rests on an all-conquering notion of "blind entitlement" to an epistemic system. This concept is poorly articulated and I don't think it is sufficient to do the work Boghossian wants it to do.
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5 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent, 18 April 2006
Boghossian does an excellent job of dispersing a few popular but entirely gaseous philosophical ideas, exposing the fallacies or sheer lack of argument underlying much of them. There is a certain amount of technical language but that shouldn't prevent non-philosophers from following the argument.
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